lature, and sometimes attract the attention of the country. For want of a better and more characteristic designation he has been compelled to name it formal or make-believe eloquence. Such a form of speech is that employed by members who have nothing new or important to add to the sum of the knowledge of the House, and who speak chiefly for the gratification of the constituencies they represent, who do not wish to have a dumb representative. Some orators are accused of occupying the House through vain show; but we opine that such egregious vanity would soon receive quittance in our Parliament, which is notoriously averse to being played upon. It may connive at a representative's humouring his constituents by making a speech of no interest or importance, merely that his name may be inserted in the newspapers as having spoken in the House; but it is unlikely to listen patiently to the mere effusions of vanity, if there be nothing in their matter or manner to commend them to its sense of fitness.

Make-believe speeches are most frequently done to order, that is, are got up in consequence of some movement made by the influential individuals in the member's party, or some threatening agitation amongst their opponents. As these speeches are only intended to answer an outside purpose, they are seldom of much importance, though they require a good deal of tact to make them tolerable. They most usually occur about the period of a new election, or on a subject which excites the constituency, while it does not affect the member's own mind. Such speeches require great care, in choosing a House in the right humour, and not over full; in selecting a topic capable of parliamentary treatment, yet calling for little debate, and therefore exposing the speaker to little danger of being "set down;" in adopting a brief and graceful form of speech, and in having it well prepared, as well as in giving it some especial local application, such as may gratify the constituency represented. We attach little importance to this sort of essay-reading in the legislative assemblies, and, therefore, have few observations to make on the management of it. The diction ought to be choice and gracefully collocated; the sentences should be neat, harmonious, and varied, and the whole should be brief, smart, tasteful, and pleasing. Such elocutional displays can only be endurable when well done, and when the House has nothing, or little else of importance to do. They ought to be infrequent and quiet. Eloquence should "flow like a stream that is fed by an abundant spring, and not spout forth like a frothy water on some gaudy day, and remain dry the rest of the year."

We have thus outlined, as briefly as seemed consistent with the importance of our theme, the several main classes into which parliamentary eloquence appears to be divisible. It must be evident to most readers, without any elaborate statement of the principles of the "origin of species," that these distinct forms of oratory seldom occur pure and simple, but mingle and blend according to the mixed motives which actuate men. Still, a large proportion of the

eloquence of Parliament will be found to display most prominently one or other of the forms of address which have been enumerated, and most of them will be found to illustrate the definitions and remarks made on them. The value of having some settled principles of judgment, to which we can refer, has at all times been acknowledged. We have endeavoured to supply our readers with an abstract of such a scheme of classification, and such a statement of the laws relating to the several species of eloquence included in that scheme, as may usefully, we think, be applied in the perusal of parliamentary debates. In a critical age like our own, it is scarcely safe to trust to impromptu principles of adjudication; still less to an extempore entrance into the lists of controversy. It is advisable to have the ruling laws of thought firmly fixed in our minds, and right to endeavour always to follow them in the practical efforts we make. To aid in this intellectual preparedness has been our highest aim in the foregoing observations, and we trust that the results of our efforts will harmonize with the utility of our intention, and the goodness of our motive.

It may be right to state here that the principles advanced are the long-settled convictions of the author. The central germ of these articles on modern eloquence may be found in the twentyfourth paper on "Rhetoric," issued in the British Controversialist in December, 1853, and in a slightly enlarged form in the "Elements of Rhetoric," chap. xxv., Eloquence, published in 1854. The author, has not considered himself justified in repeating the definitions, or describing the characteristics, of the several portions of an oration, as they have been already fully enough explained in the pages already referred to, and to these he begs to recall attention.

Though we have endeavoured to "purge our eyes with euphrasie and rue" from an egotistic adherence to already advanced opinions, we have been unable to find any idea then mooted regarding eloquence, its place, power, method, and means, to retract or modify. We are herein only expanding into explicit utterance ideas which implicitly contained the teachings now laid before the reader. Our thoughts are, therefore, not only consistent but persistent, and, as we believe, correct, although they differ somewhat from those of previous rhetoricians. We need only refer here to one fallacy which is common amongst many, that is, that artistic speech can rarely be honest speech. To this we reply, art can only culture, not change nature; and it is as certain that culture can improve the natural eloquence of man, as that it can enhance his manufacturing skill; and that, in fact, the "art itself is Nature," for only in its artistic forms can it be said of eloquence, that

"It spreads the beauteous images abroad,
Which else lie furled and clouded in the soul."

S. N.

Religion.

ARE THE PREVALENT FORMS OF WORSHIP IN BRITAIN EFFECTIVE?

AFFIRMATIVE ARTICLE.-I.

"True adoration,-what a voice is thine!
For prayer is man's omnipotence below,-
A soul's companionship with Christ and God,-
Communion with eternity begun!"

"For differing forms of worship, let zealous bigots fight:
He can't be in the wrong, whose heart is in the right."

THIS question is much more limited in its range than at first sight it appeared to us. Our first idea was, that it included all that occupies the attention of the worshipper while in the house of God; but such a general sense is not included in the form the question assumes at the head of this paper. The religious services of Christians in Britain are not the subject-matter of debate, but that portion of the service which is strictly called worship, the chief elements of which are prayer and praise, adoration.

The religious services of Christians in Britain partake so much of the instructive and doctrinal, that we are too apt to confound those parts, which are exclusively of an educational character, with the adorative parts of the service, and call them all the worship of God without distinction. While the former is the building up of the christian character, the latter is the grateful outpouring of the christian heart. The one shows the christian life synthetically; the other analytically. This is the expression of christian affection; that is the birth, the acquisition, and the growth of life and strength.

We are excluded from any consideration of worship in general, and, therefore, cannot refer to the universal prevalence of a devotional feeling in the human heart, from the time

"When Morn, her rosy steps in the eastern clime,

Advancing, sowed the earth with Orient pearl,

And Adam, with fair Eve

from under shady, arborous roof

Lowly bow'd, adoring, and began

Their osons, each morning duly paid

In various style,"

until the present hour, when myriads of hearts, with holy ecstasy,

surround the mercy-seat in humble gratitude and love. No time, no place has been without its Ebenezer, marking the gratitude and joy of the heaven-bound pilgrim. The contemplation of such themes might make us sigh

"For the hour when this material

Shall have vanished as a cloud;

When amid the wide ethereal"

the unburdened soul shall bask in the eternal presence of the Triune Deity, and—

"Sit and sing itself away

In never-ending bliss:"

but they can never assist in forming our judgment, nor deciding the question we have to debate concerning the most effective form of worship, nor point out to us which form, if any, is effective, as adopted by the British churches.

We are pleased to feel that this is a question in which no party strife can have part, because none can presume to have an opinion upon this subject who have not a Saviour's love shed abroad in their hearts; therefore it is a question which excites to a fraternal emulation in christian love; for we are all brethren, and joint heirs with Christ of eternal life-where and when worship will be perfected, infinitely and eternally.

The Church of England, as by law established, is, by its legal position, first presented to us for examination. Its worship consists of songs of praise and solemn prayers. In its anthems, the hearts of worshippers are led to the throne of grace and glory, with the best words, thoughts, and feelings; and in its hymns and spiritual songs, although many may be old and quaint in their phraseology, yet they are venerable and valuable on account of their quaint old simplicity, in many instances widening their adaptability to religious use by their antiquity; which, by rendering them of unfrequent use in every-day life, causes a peculiar sanctity to attach to them from their peculiar use. There may be, in the estimation of some good men, too much of the expository spirit; while others may think there is more doctrinal matter of an abstruse character in the prayers of the Church than need be; but who can, with a devotional frame of mind, sing the praises of God, join in the responses and prayers of the Church service, without feeling his devotion intensified, his faith increased and strengthened, his penitence made more deep and sincere, his soul's sanctification promoted, the prospect of heaven brightened, and the bonds of earth loosened?

The Church of Rome in its services gives greater prominence to ritualism, which teaches dogmas by acts, and leads to worship; but the direct teaching, so prominent in all Protestant religious services, is subordinated to the ritual and sacrificial elements of the Romish church. Ritual worship, so far as it is ritual, is opposed to spiritual worship, and is, consequently, less effective. Rites affect the

senses; true worship is an act of the soul. This operates from within; that is active only from without. This is intrinsic; that is extrinsic. To an educated mind and heart, therefore, the Romish form of worship is less effective than that of the Church of England; while to the ignorant, the uncultivated, and the rude, the sensuous, material forms of the Papal service are more effective than any other, if we except only the Primitive Methodist form of worship, of which, however, we shall had occasion to speak in the sequel.

While the Roman Catholic worship is chiefly made up of dogmas, it is pre-eminently a system of prayer and praise. It has all the constituents of adoration to make it effective; but, being overloaded with ritual, dogma, and sacrifice, it cannot be so effective permanently, because it is opposed to the spirit and integrity of the Christian religion. It may affect for a time, while the influence of the sensuous elements are felt, but it cannot be so permanent as the more rational and truthful forms of worship shared in by the whole body of Protestant Christians. This is the worm at the core of the system, it puts on a religion from without; whereas true religion, which includes true worship, is a growth from within. It is the still small voice prompting to good and holy thoughts, feelings, and actions.

The effectiveness of the Roman Catholic worship in Britain arises from its meeting the peculiar mental and moral condition of the lowest stages of intellectual and moral being, surrounded by the constant, active influences of purer and more elevated forms of worship. It is effective, but its effectiveness arises from the low mental and moral capacity of great masses of the population, who are influenced by the sensuous in its worship, and by the decency of thought and feeling, induced by the surrounding associations in great majorities of cultivated minds and hearts, connected with more spiritual forms of worship and orders of faith.

While we accord effectiveness in their respective degrees to the Papal and Anglican worships, we are inclined to assign the greatest degree of effectiveness to the free churches of Britain, the Presbyterian, the Independent, the Baptist, the Wesleyan Methodist, and the Primitive Methodist, with other minor sects of congregational or synodical tendencies. The type of worship common to all these sects is that of free prayer and voluntary praise, suited to the changing wants and ever-varying necessities of the human heart and life. This must be, of necessity, the most effective, because it provides for the overburdened soul to pour out its wants and necessities to an ever-hearing and always-answering God. It seeks no fitness from the worshipper, either in words or acts, but

"All the fitness it requireth
Is to feel the need of Him"

who died on Calvary a ransom for the sinner's guilt. It recognizes prayer as